


forest for the trees

by rjosettes



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Camping, F/F, Genderfluid Character, Genderfluid Lydia Martin, Marriage Proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-31
Updated: 2015-10-31
Packaged: 2018-04-29 04:34:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5115884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjosettes/pseuds/rjosettes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lydia twists hir ankle on the hiking trail on a getaway weekend with hir girlfriend. It's not the only twist ze has coming.</p>
            </blockquote>





	forest for the trees

**Author's Note:**

> Written as part of the Trans Wolf Prompt Exchange at Tumblr! Prompt was genderfluid Lydia, Allydia, one of them falls and sprains their ankle while camping.

Lydia covers hir mouth when ze falls, biting hard against hir knuckles to keep from crying out. Ze doesn't want to alarm Allison, farther back on the trail and with no way of knowing what's going on. It had been her idea to turn back and head for the campsite again to pack up a few basics, just in case the two of them hiked out too far and didn't feel like making the trek back in the dark. Lydia had offered to backtrack with her, since they weren't far out, but Allison had insisted.

“Not with your tender feet,” she'd teased, carefully not mentioning Lydia's height, which she knew was a no-no. There were only so many times ze could insist that 5'3” was a perfectly fine height for a boy without considering why it needed to be insisted on in the first place. Ze's falling on the feminine side of hir own personal sliding scale these days, but it's still not something ze wants to think about, sure it will hurt hir when things inevitably tilt again.

For now, Lydia gingerly touches hir ankle and hisses, knowing it will swell soon. It's hot under hir fingertips, radiating pain up to hir knee. Not good signs, but ze can gingerly wiggle hir toes just fine. Probably nothing serious, but enough to cut a nice camping trip with hir girlfriend short. Ze waits impatiently just to the side of the path, planning the many points in hir 'I told you so' speech, to be delivered on Allison's arrival.

Ze's just beginning to worry when her shape tops the hill. No wonder it's taken her so long, Lydia thinks. The pack on her back is almost as large as the ones they'd carried into their campsite, less than a half mile from where they'd parked the car. Lydia had laughed at the sounds of cars passing by the first night, barely muffled by the very thick, conveniently placed line of trees. Allison had assured hir they wouldn't want a long walk with all of their things after the long weekend was up.

Allison can't seem to struggle out of the many straps on her pack fast enough when she finally spots Lydia. “Are you okay?” Silverware jangles somewhere in all their supplies as she drops the whole thing into the dust, rushing to kneel at Lydia's side. 

“It's just my ankle.”

“Just your ankle,” Allison scoffs, carefully skirting her fingers over the puffy skin. “On a hike. I'd think you'd be more likely to fall in your heels, but it's always the boots that get you.”

“I'm still not used to them!” Lydia protests. (It isn't pouting. Lydia Martin does not pout.) “I wanted to wear sneakers and you said no.”

“Sneakers are for running. Which only would've gotten you hurt faster.” Lydia watches her dust her hands off on her shorts, pockets bulging with stray items – the compass, some bandaids, bug spray. If they'd stuck with those basics, Lydia might be fine now. “Alright. I can come back for the supplies later,” Allison announces, and before Lydia has a chance to question it, hir girlfriend is scooping hir up.

The groan ze lets out is only partially because of hir ankle being jostled as Allison adjusts the arm hooked under hir knees. “Really? You're going to carry me?”

They move forward a few wobbling test steps and Allison hums her agreement. “Gotta get you back to camp somehow. Unless you want me to call Scott, and we can sit here in the dirt past sundown waiting on him. And then he's still going to have to carry you. It's me or Scott, and I'm here now.” She waits patiently for the put-upon sigh she expects from her lovefriend, and Lydia doesn't give her the satisfaction. Instead, ze settles down into Allison's arms for the ride.

It takes a while to get back to the campsite, but if there's one thing Allison is good at, it's filling the silence of nature. She knows every plant and stray insect they spot and talks about all of them to occupy Lydia as they make headway. They've been on a trip like this before, though they'd brought Malia and Kira along, and there'd been less time for things like this. Lydia finds the sound of Allison's voice soothing, the throb of hir ankle briefly forgotten, and before ze knows it, they've made it back to their somewhat presentable campsite. Allison drags a blanket out of the tent with her feet and fidgets with it before she sits Lydia down on top.

“Shit,” Allison mutters, rummaging through a bag in the tent. “The compression bandage is in the other pack. I knew something was going to happen out there.” She slaps her balled fists against the mostly limp duffel bag and fumes silently for a second before she gets her head on straight. “Plan B.” Lydia watches as she takes a washrag out of one of her many pockets, opens the cooler that had been full of ice on their first dag, and dunks it. “It's so weird that I wasn't a Girl Scout,” she says, almost to herself, as she wraps the rag around Lydia's ankle and then reaches back into the cooler. “Instant cold packs.” 

“With or without ammonium nitrate?” 

Allison smiles indulgently. “Without, of course. Safety first.” She tightens her grip on the bag until the smaller pouch inside pops before she lays it over the rag. It's cold but doesn't sting Lydia's skin; the rag between is doing its job. Allison wraps a towel around the whole setup to hold it in place. “I'll find something in the pack to prop it on when you get back.

Lydia frowns. “You're going?” They need the pack; ze's sure that Allison put most or all of the cooking supplies in it, as well as the things they didn't trust to be left alone overnight. 

“I'll be back soon. There's a surprise in there for you.” She pauses. “Actually.” One by one, she fumbles through her pockets – a pack of toothpicks, a box of matches, some interesting rocks she wants to bring back to Mason. “Another surprise.” She produces Lydia's phone, switched off to save battery. The service here is patchy even near the road, and nonexistent past the trees, but Lydia has all sorts of things stored up for times just like this. There's nothing more powerful than looking busy and never being bored. Ze'd left the phone in the glovebox; Allison must have gone all the way back for it.

Lydia snaps a photo of hir ankle and then hir unimpressed face as documentation for the pack. Ze sorts them over to the selfie album for easy access, smiling at the folder full of pictures. It's almost possible to trace back hir journey over the past few years with these pictures. May of the previous year is all shorts and tees, hir first foray into clothes that didn't fit hir strict routine up until then. Malia and their wardrobe had helped a lot – not in a practical way, since their legs are so much longer, but to get an idea of what Lydia wanted to do with hirself. Ze was not built for plaid and denim like Malia is, but there are soft florals that help ease hir into things when ze is just starting to wonder if some other style might make hir feel better certain days. 

July of last year is a mess. After a long cry that came out of nowhere and refused to stop, even after Scott turned up with gelato and crappy romance movies and Allison rubbed hir back, Lydia had gotten a haircut. It wasn't quite as severe as Victoria Argent's had been – even in hir emotional state, ze'd known better than to call up those old memories – but it was the greater portion of hir hair just...gone. There had been another long cry after that, because ze had hated it. Not the two days of normal haircut hate, but an actual vicious hatred. It took weeks to learn to live with it properly, and even longer for it to get to a length ze actually liked and would consider keeping.

Ze touches hir hair self-consciously now, looking at the old photos. They've been away from hot showers less than twenty-four hours, and hir hairstyle now is much less high maintenance now, but it can't look as good as ze probably wishes it did. It's pulled back now, a tiny ponytail consisting mostly of curls. It doesn't look much different than when Derek pulls his own back, though his is straighter, and he'd protested when Stiles – meaning well as always – had called him and Lydia manbun buddies. All jokes aside, it's a length that makes Lydia feel comfortable no matter how ze feels like presenting or where ze's wading around in the confusing puddle that is hir gender. 

Lydia's looking at the photos of Liam in hir clothes while ze wears his from this summer when Allison straggles in with the pack, looking worse for the wear. She can take her time with all of the straps this time, at least, easing herself into a squat so she can gently set it all down. Not that it matters after she let it go crashing on the hiking path, but oh well. She crawls dramatically on hands and knees and collapses next to Lydia, staring up at hir. “I feel like a mule.”

“Allison,” Lydia says, as carefully as ze knows how. “You ran five times that far with a pack nearly as big once.”

“Across a whole day! With snacks!” She turns her face into Lydia's thigh, planting a smooch on the bare skin. “And I had Malia to carry the pack when I got tired.” Lydia remembers that trip vividly. Stiles and Kira had both been antsy, while ze'd holed up with a few math papers that had been piling up in hir bookmarks and tried to forget. It wasn't the longest two weeks of hir life by far – those probably have been left behind sometime in high school – but ze had been so happy when Allison got home that it made up for all of the tension headaches. “Take off that cold pack, it should've come off ages ago. I forgot to tell you before I left.”

Lydia pets Allison's hair and waits patiently for whatever else is coming. She'd promised a surprise in the pack, and it's been niggling at the back of Lydia's mind all this time. Hir phone had been a nice enough gesture; they'd promised to leave them in the car for this trip, since it was so short and they could easily retrieve them if they needed to. An 'us' trip, Allison had called it. Lydia had liked the idea in theory, and technically that part of things hasn't put a damper on hir enjoyment at all. It's the faulty ankle that's causing all of the problems. 

Eventually, hir girlfriend lets out a loud groan and rolls over, dragging the pack between her spread legs by the bungee cords threaded on the back. “I have to start a fire,” she says, blocking Lydia's view into the pack with her body. “It's getting dark.”

Watching Allison do things like this – the things her family taught her that are more about helping than harming – is always fascinating. She's so capable and practiced; it's the same as watching Kira's father cook or Hayden running soccer drills. She's remarkably quick at getting the fire going, her skilled hands making easy work of a task Lydia understands in theory but has never bothered to learn in practice. One of these days ze will ask Allison to break it down for hir, to slow the pace of her body following years of habit, but tonight ze only watches and admires until the warm glow of the embers grows into flame.

Lydia doesn't even have to act surprised when Allison triumphantly pulls the (only slightly squashed) marshmallows from the pack, waving a pair of classic Hershey's chocolate bars in her other hand. “The graham crackers might be a little crumbly,” she says, but she doesn't sound fazed, and so Lydia isn't either. Ze's watched Braeden make her s'mores without them, shoving the bit of chocolate inside her marshmallow before she roasts it. If all else fails, they'll try that. It looks like the graham crackers mostly have their corners broken off, though, so they should be fine.

They spend a long time like that – Lydia roasting all of hir own marshmallows, since Allison's favorite technique is setting them on fire until they're charred and blowing them out – while the sun fully sets and all of the nighttime creatures start to make noise. It had taken years for Lydia to want to be out in the wilderness again; not remembering what happened on those days running naked wasn't comforting in the least. Allison has taken the time and care to ease hir into this, though, and it's become something peaceful. Ze's come a long way from the occasional walk through a particularly dense park. It's hard not to keep smiling down at Allison near hir feet, passing up assembled s'mores with chocolate smeared around her lovely mouth, pink tongue darting out to catch it. A lot of things, ze realizes, have come a long way since high school.

“I think I might pass out.” Allison ties the marshmallow bag in a knot, knee-walking a foot or two to the pack. She passes Lydia a pack of towelettes for hir sticky fingers. “I'm going to wrap your ankle before we go to bed, though. Just to be safe. We'll see how much weight it can hold tomorrow, but I'm carrying you to the car either way. The last thing we need is you tripping and making it worse.” The bandage is stuffed into a zipper compartment with a folded sling and other things Lydia might've mocked her for bringing. She keeps rummaging, though.

“Safety pins are in the film canister,” Lydia notes for her, remembering easily. They'd packed together quickly and efficiently and though things have been moved around a lot, ze at least knows where things were originally. “With the needles and the tiny spool of thread.” 

Allison gasps softly in recognition, pushes the pack away, and starts rifling through her shorts pockets. The toothpicks fall out, but luckily they're still sealed tight, and Lydia watches as an Altoids tin bounces off toward the fire. Only the two deepest pockets are left, and Allison reaches down and turns the right one inside out. The film canister, thank God, comes up in Allison's hand. On the ground - 

“Fuck.”

There's a lot of fumbling over the next few seconds, but it's too late. Lydia knows what those little velvet boxes are, where they come from, and what comes in them. “Allison?” Hir heart is rabbit-fast in hir chest. “You dropped....”

“I'm sorry.” She moves to stuff the box into her pocket and Lydia stops her, fingers not quite looping all the way around Allison's trembling wrist. “I changed my mind when you got hurt; I wanted it to be perfect. I know it takes you a while, sometimes, to...you know. Think about things? And we were going to be alone for the weekend. We could pretend it never happened if you weren't ready.”

“Can I see it?” 

Allison's muscles go tense under Lydia's fingers, grip growing tighter on the box. “What?”

“I want to see what you got me.” It's hard to speak clearly through the tightness in hir throat, but ze can maintain an illusion of calm for hir girlfriend's sake. “Is that alright?” Lydia waits for for Allison to nod and then to slowly unball her fist, the plain black box balanced in the middle of her palm.

The ring inside is rose gold with a pear-cut diamond. It's everything Allison doesn't like in jewelry. Her lingering connection to her family name brings her down firmly on silver over gold; Lydia's seen her lose her breath over diamonds in mall displays, all with sharper lines and more facets. She picked this out with what Lydia might like in mind. It's not a surprise, but it leaves Lydia overwhelmed all the same. So overwhelmed, in fact, that it takes hir a while to notice that it's not one ring at all, but two nested together.

“Sweetie,” ze says softly, smiling, “I think you're supposed to wait for the band until the wedding.” Even the word tastes sweet and strange in hir mouth.

Allison ducks her head, shoulders hunching. Lydia would bet she's blushing, but it's hard to tell by the low light of the fire and the moon above them. “Take them apart.” She seems certain enough of herself, and Lydia disconnects the two. The engagement ring itself seems delicate, despite being wide enough to hold itself in place in the setting. The band, though, is broader. Sturdy. And in the place where the engagement was resting is a cut-out – not only a thin strip to accommodate its mate but a heart shape that sits in the middle, neatly tucked in the space that the diamond will cover when ze fits them back together. The ring isn't strongly masculine – no curved titanium with black diamonds or anything so aggressive – but it's far more neutral than the engagement ring itself. “I didn't want you to have to go without when you weren't alright with the big diamond.”

Lydia feels like ze might cry. It's normal, that much is obvious from pop culture and anecdotal evidence. It makes hir uncomfortable, though, and Allison's hopeful smile crumbles. “I'll be alright,” Lydia assures her. “It's just....”

“A little much,” Allison agrees, gingerly taking the rings and placing them back into the box. “I know. I think we should head to sleep. We'll see if you can walk a few steps on that ankle.” She watches Lydia's face carefully for an answer, which makes the tears threatening to fall even more of a danger. Lydia only nods.

Allison plays big spoon after Lydia limps to the tent, letting hir work out her feelings in peace without being watched. It's a relief and a blessing. This is a good thing, a wonderful thing that happens to most people at some point in their lives. It's happening to Lydia with the best possible person at the best possible time. Their lives are settling more every day and ze finally knows what Allison was talking about all those years ago when she described the bigness of love, the way it affects every moment in a way that rarely makes her anxious and always makes her happy. Ze falls asleep with hir fingers tangled through Allison's, eyes puffy but mind settled.

The next morning is mostly a blurry haze of being helped from the tent as Allison breaks it down and packs it up. Lydia falls in and out of a doze propped up with the blanket laid down for hir yesterday and a handy log while Allison takes the first pack out to the car. Ze limps along to the edge of the tree line when it's time to go, insisting on going as far as ze can before the roots and underbrush become a minefield. By the time ze's being lifted into Allison's arms, it's possible to be anything but wide awake from the twinge in hir ankle.

No cars pass them on the first stretch of the drive back, and Allison's indie pop playlist is dialed down low enough that it would disappear under the sound of the engine if the car interior weren't so eerily quiet. Lydia watches Allison bite the inside of her lips and fidget with her steering wheel cover as she drives. She's nervous, too, a realization Lydia finds both comforting and distressing in turn.

“We would be spouses, right?” ze asks lightly, staring out into the distance, eyes fixed on the horizon. “You would be my wife, and I would be your spouse.”

“We're already partners,” Allison agrees. “In everything. It doesn't exactly say anything new about us.”

There's a beat or two of silence as they pass a mile marker, neither of them looking at the other. Lydia would know Allison's eyes on hir even a crowded room. They're half an hour from real civilization and even further from the pack. It will have to be long enough.

“I have absolutely nothing to wear to my own wedding,” ze says resolutely. Allison smiles.


End file.
